The European Space Agency is daring to go further than ever before. Today, the Juice probe begins its eight-year journey to Jupiter.
2031 will be juice probe To be where you want to be. 700 million km from Earth, in an extreme world. Very cold, very dark and highly exposed to radiation. “Jupiter is a giant particle accelerator,” says the astrophysicist. Dieter Werz from the University of Bern.
hardship for electronics
Jupiter’s day lasts only ten hours. A gas giant is a circular giant that generates a very large amount of radioactivity with its fast rotation and strong magnetic field. Absolutely deadly to us humans and a huge danger to electronics.
So the probe electronics Specially formulated to be radiation resistant And shielded by a radiation detector built at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Aargau.
Data collection and light in the dark
As a satellite, Juice will scour Jupiter’s dark system to measure gas masses, magnetic fields, and radiation. with minimal energy.
The 85 square foot solar panels say to pull every ounce of light out of the darkness Audrey Furburger. She is also an astrophysicist at the University of Bern and, like Peter Wohrs, has been involved with the Juice project since the first planning meetings. The solar panels provide about 900 watts. On Earth it would be 30,000 watts. “You can just run the hair dryer on its lowest setting.”
Ice moons are cosmic freezers
Juice, as liquid as it sounds, focuses on the frozen stuff: the three big icy moons Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. The term juice refers toYuPeter ICy moons Hexplorer ».
legend:
Visible in the photo: Ganymede in the foreground, Callisto far right and Europa center right. The volcanically active moon Io is also visible to the left.
NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency, STScI, and J. DePasquale (STScI)
The three icy moons make their rounds around Jupiter in radiation hell, which can be as cold as -170 degrees. Covered with ice sheets up to 150 kilometers thick. It keeps the date of birth of our solar system. “The frozen chemistry gives us a glimpse into 4.5 billion years ago,” says Peter Wurz, head of the Bern Juice team.
Solid core soft shell
Juice aims to decipher the chemistry of the primordial and soft cloud beneath the hard crust. “In vast oceans of water, there could be simple life, protected from radiation by a thick mantle of ice.”
Most likely in Europe. Audrey Forberger says the ocean there is deep and big and ancient and because it hits rocks right at the bottom. Rocks from which minerals release warm springs, which can give rise to life and nourish it.
Inhale the possible life
The juice will reach within 200 kilometers of the icy moon and, if lucky, cross Europa’s exhalation apparatus. A geyser-like geyser of water that Europa forces through cracks in the ice sheet. That’s the great hope, says Peter Wurz: “In a spray like this, we can do it with us NIM mass spectrometerDirectly measure the chemical composition of the oceans, and measure the traces of life in the form of metabolites – if life exists.”
The juice will do its rounds in the Jovian system for three years – and then, when it runs out of light and energy, it will crash on Ganymede, the largest moon.
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